September 11, 2001, is considered the main event, but the changes of the decade go far beyond the menace of terrorism and the war on terror. The technological revolution, the wide use of the Internet, and the advent of social media are just some of the innovations that grew to define the decade. The war on terror and its strong rhetoric hid these phenomena. The purpose of this book is to show the true patterns of change—those innovations that will influence coming decades. This is more than a timeline, it is the tale of an extraordinary decade. Within each year, Napoleoni presents events not in a strict chronology but more as we might remember them, often with the most significant events recalled first. Thus the main topics—politics, economics, people, technology, and the environment—cross over constantly, showing how they are all interlinked and how globalization is speeding up the pace of change in our world.